Alphabutt, Kimya Dawson's long-awaited children's album-- and her first release since contributing a handful of tracks to the Juno soundtrack-- is not so different from what she typically does: It's packed with odd, irreverent, snickering folksongs about banal or unremarkable situations. Only now, instead of skewering complex adult relationships, she's crowing, mostly, about poo.
Inspired, in part, by her two-year old daughter Panda Delilah, Alphabutt sees Dawson (formerly one-half of New York anti-folk duo the Moldy Peaches) singing simply and without affect, her voice deep and pleasantly scruffy, like a chewed-up, over-squished teddy bear. Dawson takes a lot of hits for being precious (a good chunk of that derision is probably tied up in post-homeskillet backlash), but Alphabutt, while predictably cute, is also frank and funny and delightfully rude. It's accessible but not cloying; Dawson doesn't pander or patronize or adopt the kind of preposterous, over-annunciated, beyond-Broadway cartoon voice that plagues so many children's records. More important, her work is candid and funny and matchless: What parent wouldn't want to play his or her kid an alphabet song (the stupid-charming "Alphabutt") where 70% of the letters refer to multi-species flatulence, "V" stands for flying-V, and "C" stands for cat butt?
Still, anyone without a child in the house, a pre-adolescent sense of humor, or a massive supply of psychotropic drugs might not find too much use for Alphabutt (babies and toddlers spend a good chunk of each day mulling scatological concerns; adults, less so, yet Dawson, nodding to her audience, references the business of excreting in nearly every track). This is a children's album, and Dawson is appropriately unapologetic about all that entails (see: lyrics about animals and potties and little monster babies). But Dawson's proclivity for simple acoustic melodies and for expertly incorporating found sound (kazoos, bells, a chorus of kids) mean that these songs-- however silly or gross-- are also artfully constructed.
Predictably, some cuts are more adult-friendly than others. "Happy Home (Keep on Writing)"-- incidentally, at three and a half minutes, it's the second longest track here-- sees Dawson taking stock of the status quo, using grown-up signifiers: "There was a time in my life that I felt so all alone/ I never thought that someday I would have a happy home/ A family and a four-track/ RadioShack microphones/ A backyard and a hammock and a paid-off student loan," she sings. Likewise, "I Love You Sweet Baby," a catalogue of a day in the life of a parent-child team, is an ode to parenthood and the ways in which it alters-- irrevocably-- an adult life: "The first thing on our list of things to do/ Is to wake up right next to you/ Second thing that we have planned/ Is to kiss both of your hands," Dawson details.
Arguably the biggest challenge facing little Americans is the lack of (non-marketed, non-commercial) culture speaking directly to them-- Alphabutt is honest and funny, and manages to sidestep all tired, kid-song tropes. Any parent tired of the "SpongeBob SquarePants" theme would do well by their tots to pick this up.
